It's a bright sunny Monday morning in June as the transformation of the Old Shop continues. Builders return from stag weekends in Amsterdam and accompanying European exchange students on trips to London to pick up where they left off........................and so we continue on the journey.
The de-construction is largely complete now and the materials continue to arrive for the re-construction. This is the heavier insulation board for the ground floor under the heating pipes.
Lining the the external walls with a frame for insulation board continues in the large front bedroom.
Another view in the same room.
Moving on into the guest bedroom............
Another view of the same room - you will see that the old wardrobe hasn't moved again as yet! Thankfully the man who arrived Monday evening to measure the shower room for the flooring was slim enough to get through the gap at the side of this!
The plasterboard in the back bedroom is complete - even the section the electricians cut off is back in place ready for plaster skim later this week.
The main bathroom is beginning to take shape - rather large window sill to be topped with worktop as a row of units with the sink and the toilet are to be fitted on this wall.
Mission Control is taking shape under the stairs - this is just the wiring from upstairs!
Just a few stones for the re-construction of the back door.
This is the 'cork-type' material that was inside the old water tank.
Construction materials seem to arrive daily - and Susan gets updates from work colleagues as they see things being delivered on their way through the village!
We have a bedroom plastered and ready for painting - that's next weekends job.
The job for this weekend was to try and provide better access for the tree surgeon when we get to that point as they are quite clear that the machines won't go through the entrance to the garden. So we decided to clear the path along the side of the wall to make a bit more room to haul out the tree branches etc and look what we found under all that bracken and ivy........................
This is now the view as you leave the courtyard to go into the garden and you will see below this is a rockery (or at least it was once upon a time) and a pond. We also discovered that there must have been a concrete path from the courtyard into the garden and you can just see the edge of it - something of an archaelogical dig this weekend as we unearthed various objects, bones (animal we believe!) gro-bags, metal objects - various - glass (lots!) and of course slate..................
Along the way we found a few slates, some whole, some craked and some completely smashed. they are a mix of welsh and ?Chinese? but we are not sure if they will be any use for anything other than slate chippings for the garden at this point.
I know it is difficult to see but this is a mound of stones and hopefully it will be a bit clearer when we get the ivy roots out.
The pond - or at least it was once and we think that we might just make it so again.......
This is what we took out of that corner of the garden - some of it are branches from the large cypress tree that had just been hacked off and dumped but the remainder is brambles, ivy and various other vigorously growing weeds (I know they are simply plants in the wrong place) which left us both covered in scratches and nettle stings for our efforts.
Looking back towards the courtyears you can even see the pond basket on the side so it must have actually been looked after and planted at some point in history.
This is the 'Bread Oven' with the hayloft above now revealed - susan could not wuite get to the ivy on the roof but as you can see it is withering so outcome achieved. We are now on a mission to rid the walls and garden of ivy as much as possible.
The uncovering of the path led us to the discovery of flagstones in the corner of the courtyard as a result of discovering that the plants that were growing there did not appear to be very deep-rooted. More to do on this bit as we had run out of steam by then.
The corner of the courtyard leading round into the garden so flagstones onto concrete path and beyond ...............as yet not fully investigated or uncovered.
The old pond pump for our other house came in handy as we needed to empty the Rainwater Cistern so that we could determine what - if any - work needs doing to it.
It's difficult to see but it's approximately a metre square and a metre deep so holds a lot of water. Mike had to rescue the resident frog and deposit it in the old bath full of water in the garden although I suspect it will find its way back in due course. The cistern itself looks Ok but the top of it will need some work - if nothing else to make it visible to anyone driving into the courtyard so that they don't drive something too heavy over it! Ultimately it will be a great source of 'Grey Water' which we need to plan for.
Bathroom now plastered ready for second fix and tiling
as is the Shower Room.............
That's all for Week 4 folks - hope you are finding it as interesting and rewarding as we are - even if we are completely exhausted by Monday morning when we quite happily leave the builders to it for another week.
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